Exhibition title of the year

Click here for more information.

Design and class

Over at the design blog, Drawing on Promises, "Blank" raises some intriguing questions about the relationship between design and social class.

Like it or not, design has class. And no, I don’t mean it's classy as in elegant or fashionable, although design is a very trendy business world accessory of late. And I don't mean design has class as in groups that share the same common attributes. I mean design has class as in an artificial social hierarchy--much of it self inflicted. This more subtle definition of class creates a division where one group is perceived as "better" or "higher" or "more refined" than the other. This trend is nothing new. Art, architecture, literature, culture, music, etc. all have created similar class systems. And we as designers are somewhat guilty for creating artificial divisions in design. Let me explain.

I recently listened to an online video given by Malcom Gladwell, well known author of the Tipping Point and Blink. He tells the story of how in the early '70's Grey Poupon Dijon mustard broke into a field dominated by two plain yellow mustards. How? First, they created a different type of mustard that was spicy and brown. Then through design and advertising they created an artificial mustard social class, where plain yellow mustards should be perceived as "common" and Grey Poupon as "upper class" mustard. Grey Poupon became a mustard to aspire to, not merely consume. Soon, many in advertising and design were following their lead, creating products and services that were based on aspiration and social hierarchy where there had been none before. Think computers: Mac (creative class) vs PC (corporate working class). Think cars: Ford (working class) vs BMW (upper crust).

This last sentence really caught my attention. Could it be that part of the problem at Ford and GM goes far beyond - and far deeper - than the quality and performance of their cars - that at least part of the problem is the way their cars are perceived as conveying a certain class status?  More to the point, with all the talk over niche markets and long-tails, could it be that the perception of social class remains a powerful tool in marketing to consumer groups? Your thoughts?

Dangerous politics of a spiky world

Martin Wolf puts his finger on what is perhaps the biggest issue of our time - the growing divergence between "economic progress" and "political turmoil" in the Financial Times (subscription only, hat tip: Mark Thoma).

The world's economy is in excellent shape, but its politics is disturbing. ..-. The question is whether and how this divergence might end. ...

One possible outcome might be the exact opposite of conventional wisdom: economic disappointment and political stability. ... Today, the underpricing of risk and the combination of low interest rates with fast growth almost invite economic blunders. Meanwhile, the world's political leaders, aware of the risks of conflict and reliant on their people's prosperity for retaining power, may well continue to muddle through. This surprising outcome is quite possible.

A second alternative is that the economic and political tracks would continue in their separate directions. The reason for this would be that, far from being distinct, the contrasting economics and politics are two faces of just one globalising world. ...

The fact that economics is making our world more interdependent and connected, while politics remains national or local, makes the contrast between economics and politics inevitable. ...

It is plausible, therefore, that political disarray and economic success will continue in tandem, the challenge being to avoid the emergence of too wide a gap between the two. For, as we learned in the first half of the 20th century, a big enough backlash is capable of causing devastation. In a nuclear age, that devastation would be greater still. ...

A third possibility is that the politics overwhelms the economics, as it did between 1914 and 1945 and in the communist "second world" and much of the so-called "third world" for much longer. An attack on Iran - a much-discussed possibility in Davos - would bring far closer the clash of civilisations... feared by so many... In that case, the economic optimism of today would prove unfounded - possibly destroyed by a world of $150-a-barrel oil in the aftermath of the closing of the straits of Hormuz through which so much of the world's oil flows.

Yet there is also a far more comforting possibility: the economics overwhelms the politics. One of the stories of our era is the way in which vast countries such as China and India are orienting their politics around the goal of prosperity. This forces them to seek domestic and global stability and accept international openness and mutual dependence. They see no benefit in international conflict. It is surely possible that this view of national priorities will take hold in more of the world, including the Middle East. ...

In such a world, the issues discussed in Davos - climate change, the Doha round and African development - might be handled successfully. The difficulties of collective action are profound. But ..., the less credible are unilateral approaches to a resolution, the more likely are co-operative ones.

This year's "Davos dilemma" - the contrast between the world's favourable economics and troublesome politics - is clear enough. But its resolution is not. A range of possible outcomes, from the perverse and catastrophic to the uncomfortable and even benign, is conceivable. The outcome is not inevitable. We can choose.

Jerry Mayer and I take up this theme in our essay on "The Unsettled Politics of the Creative Age."  Click here to download.

What are your thoughts?

New talent studies

I use the occupational statistics from the Bureau of  Labor Statistics all the time. But it's also worth noting that the Bureau's researchers produce some of the best research on regional trends and on talent shifts around.  Here are links to some of the best studies of the past year.

New report on the Washington DC regional economy:  It shows how Northern Virgina has emerged as a second center and also how the region is less dependent on government employment, more diversified and the nation's leading concentration for business and professional services.

Manhattan's economy since 9/11

New Orleans economy after Katrina

Foreign-born workforce

Global labor market comparisons

Occupational changes since 1900

Workforce projections out to 2050

Davos does demography

According to this report by Christoper Power: "One of the dominant themes emerging from Davos this year is the power of demographics. Population isn't exactly destiny, but it's a huge determinant in how nations, economies, and companies fare. And the demographics often reveal trends that, on the surface at least, contradict the general appearance of a nation's prosperity." Amen! The whole story is here.

Silicon Valley is spiked

The new 2007  Index of Silicon Valley is out. This year's effort by Doug Henton and the terrific team at Collaborative Economics is the best one yet.  In addition to tracking trends in high-tech and venture investment, it includes a detailed section on Silicon Valley in a spiky world, with  new data on the global distribution of patents, IT employment, and venture investments. This special section has a detailed analysis of talent and diversity which concludes that "Silicon Valley’s diverse ethnic composition will be its chief asset in the global marketplace, where new technology regions in Asia, Israel, and Europe are emerging as competitors and collaborators."   The report includes a detailed analysis of the externalities of the creative economy, including worsening economic inequality and deepening problems of housing affordability, noting  that: " the region faces significant challenges... the percentage of first-time home buyers who can afford the median-priced home is 26 percent, down from 31 percent in 2005."

The report  concludes that Silicon Valley is: "growing as a global center for creativity in business and technology, defining our advantage by being creators of new products, services, companies and business models. This is a fundamental restructuring, away from the old manufacturing model toward a new idea economy. We can see it happening very clearly, and our region’s companies are taking full advantage.  The question for Silicon Valley is whether there will be broad participation in these activities—particularly for the rising generation—or whether we’re looking at a future where our companies prosper through their global networks but the region doesn’t feel better off.”

The full report is here.

Quality of Place

Have a look at this article  on "Place-making for the Creative Class" by James Richard in the current issue of  Landscape Architecture magazine. It's based on the findings of the detailed fieldwork and interviews for his University of Texas master's thesis on quality of place in Austin, Seattle and Washington DC.

Flight of the fliers

More than 800 million  people traveled internationally last year, breaking previous records,  according to a new report from the United Nations' World Tourism Organization. Tourism was up 4 percent in Europe and the Middle East, 7.6 percent in Asia-Pacific and 8.1percent in Africa - and 4.5 percent overall.

Guess what region had the weakest growth?   North America, where tourism was up just 2 percent.  While one might think the weaker U.S. dollar would encourage travelers to head to America, tourism from Western Europe to the US fell 3 percent last year.  According to the report, "widespread confusion over  U.S. visa and passport requirements for foreign visitors" is to (hat tip:  Shari Young Kuchenbecker). 

The City that Never Walks

Brian Knudsen sent me this link to Robert's Sullivan's terrific oped in yesterday's New York Times:

"For the past two decades, New York has been an inspiration to other American cities looking to revive themselves. Yes, New York had a lot of crime, but somehow it also still had neighborhoods, and a core that had never been completely abandoned to the car. Lately, though, as far as pedestrian issues go, New York is acting more like the rest of America, and the rest of America is acting more like the once-inspiring New York."

Real estate is spiky

Here's Trulia's national real estate heat map on the left.  You can drill down for more detailed information on states,  counties, cities, neighborhoods, and zip codes by clicking on the live map over at their site.

On the right is competitor  Zillow's list of million dollar homes by city. There, you can use Zestimates to create all sorts of interesting data on real estate trends.

And over at the ominously titled Housing Doom, there's a list  (below) of foreclosed properties by state, based on  data on Fannie Mae-owned properties.  It's not the list they imagined, dominated as it is by heartland states like Ohio and Michigan, with bubble markets conspicuously absent, at least for the time being.  Click on any of these graphics to enlarge.

 

Your thoughts on what might be behind these trends and patterns?

Davos vs Burning Man

Grant McCracken has an interesting post on Davos. Quoting the New York Times he writes that Davos founder Karl Schwab has "managed to keep Davos a hot ticket for three decades by latching on to the latest political and business trends.' A claim like this gives a guy a certain credibility.  Schwab found a way to create a trend (Davos). And then he found a way to make the trend ride the trends.  These are many and include: the celebrity activitist (Bono, Gabriel); ex-presidents as world leaders (Clinton, Carter, Clinton); the celebrity CEO (Gates, Jobs, endlessly etc.)..."

Taking a page from McCracken, I ran a Google Trends analysis, comparing Davos to other high-profile events like Burning Man, South-by-Southwest, and the Sundance Festival. Looks to me like Robert Redford and movie stars are first, with Davos and Burning Man neck and neck,  and the SXSW rockers pulling up the rear.

Your thoughts?

Rehabilitating Robert Moses

I never thought I would see the day, but here it is:  a glowing New York Times story on three new museum exhibits set to  polish up the image of Robert Moses.  This is the person who bulldozed countless urban neighborhoods, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, starved mass transit while he poured money into highways, and would have paved over Greenwich Village if not for the valiant efforts of a young Jane Jacobs and other urban activists.  When I visited Jane in her Toronto home a few years before her death, she told me of her one meeting with Moses.  It was during hearings over one of his many mega-projects.  After Jacobs finished speaking, Moses, red-faced with anger, hands clenched around the courtroom banister, admonished the entire hearing room: "How in the world can you listen to her? She's just a mother!"

Here's what the Times has to say, referencing architectural historian, Hilary Ballon.

Moses deserves better — or at least a fresh look. In three exhibitions opening in the next few days — at the Museum of the City of New York, the Queens Museum of Art and Columbia University — Ms. Ballon argues that too little attention has been focused on what Moses achieved, versus what he destroyed, and on the enormous bureaucratic hurdles he surmounted to get things done. With the city on the brink of a building boom unparalleled since Moses’ heyday — the reconstruction of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, an overhaul of the Far West Side, sweeping redevelopment downtown — Ms. Ballon and other scholars argue that his legacy is more relevant than ever.  “Living in New York, one is aware there has been no evident successor or successors to Moses,” she said. “There aren’t master builders. Who is looking after the city? How do we build for the future?” All around New York State, she suggests, people tend to take for granted the parks, playgrounds and housing Moses built, now generally binding forces in those areas, even if the old-style New York neighborhood was of no interest to Moses himself. And were it not for Moses’ public infrastructure and his resolve to carve out more space, she argues, New York might not have been able to recover from the blight and flight of the 1970s and ’80s and become the economic magnet it is today."

Read the whole thing here.

But New York's recent success has little to do with Moses' disastrous vision. The city and region have succeeded in spite of Moses, coming back because of a combination of economic and structural change, demographic forces, and bottom-up neighborhood rebuilding. In the 1970s, Moses' disciples like Roger Starr were arguing that the only path to renewal lay in "benign neglect" -  essentially letting vast swatches of the city run so far down that property would become cheap enough to enable another round of top-down rebuilding in the image and likeness of the suburbs.   So now we have this rewriting of history in its most banal form -- a "great man" with his "great projects" did it. Come on. 

But it's just what the doctor ordered, really, in booming New York City:  Someone to make the case anew for a new generation of soulless,  top-down, a-human mega-projects, where only the visions of "great" architects, designers, and developers count, where living neighborhoods can be run roughshod over and human beings don't  matter. It's as if Jane Jacobs simply did not exist and never wrote her classic critique of such megalomaniacal urbanism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

The ever thoughtful Columbia historian Ken Jackson provides the relevant context:  “A lot of big projects are on the table again, and it kind of suggests a Moses era without Moses.”  So let's invite his rehabilitated ghost back to the table. The Times story notes that somehow they've managed to bar Moses' biographer, the Pulitzer prize-winning Robert Caro, from the festivities. 

Take heed of the old adage: "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." Or as Jane Jacobs apocryphally told me: "When a place gets boring" - as just these sorts of mega-projects  which damp down street-life and human energy will doubtless ensure - "even the rich people leave."

Beware of what you wish for, New York.

New Texico Rises

I've spent much of the past week embroiled in intellectual debates with my colleagues in urban sociology and related fields.  So this story in today's El Paso Times couldn't have come at a better time. It reminds me that what's really important is what's happening on the ground  in real communities.  A much smarter thinker that me once said (and I paraphrase):  The point is not to interpret the world, the point is to change it. I want to send a personal note of gratitude to Joyce Wilson, Angela Mora (pictured here), and our energetic team of change-agents in El Paso,  and especially to my own incredible RFCG team:  Rod Frantz, Amanda Styron, David Miller and Lou Musante, who are the force behind our contribution to this effort.   As we expand these efforts at community transformation, Veronica Escobar, one of  the young visionary leaders we met in El Paso, will  be helping us in future initiatives around the country as well as continuing to make change happen in New Texico.

"Economic development isn't just about attracting companies; it's also about attracting and keeping talented people, and that takes a creative city.... A group of 31 El Pasoans has taken Florida's theories to heart, and with the help of the Richard Florida Creativity Group, based in Washington D.C., are trying to find ways to tap into this area's creativity to improve the quality of life here and to stimulate economic growth. The El Paso group is part of the New Texico Creative Cities Leadership Project... El Paso and Tacoma, Wash., are the first cities to be part of Florida's Creative Cities Leadership Project. Last week, Florida's company announced the start of similar projects in Tallahassee, Fla., Charlotte, N.C., and Duluth-Superior, Minn.

For more information on the New Texico project, click here.

Why diversity matters

Earlier I posted on Scott Page's new book, The Difference. John Hagel has a nice review over at Edge Perspectives.  Scott, a University of Michigan professor and fellow at the Santa Fe Institute,  has a fabulous short piece over at the Center For American Progress, here.

Most people believe that innovation requires smarter people, better ideas. That premise, though intuitive, omits what may be the most powerful but least understood force for innovation: Diversity.

Diversity usually calls to mind differences in race, gender, ethnicity, physical capabilities, and sexual orientation—social or political differences that at first glance have little to do with innovation. Yet the key to innovation, in economic terms, resides inside the heads of people, the more diverse the better. That link may not be immediately apparent, yet any understanding of innovation's role in economic growth must focus on diversity as well as ability.

 Do your own experiences and observations jibe with Page's assessments?

Global housing trends

Via Wendy Waters at All About Cities,  a new report by Demographia  on global trends in housing markets which notes  growing housing affordability issues in super-star cities, and the splitting of the US into two divergent kinds of housing markets.

Tallahassee Taking Action

Yesterday we announced a powerful partnership between the Richard Florida Creativity Group and The Knight Foundation, the Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Check out the latest coverage in Tallahassee, FL - the first Knight community we will be working with:

A video from the news conference

A great editorial

Also, if you are from the Tallahassee region, please click here to learn more about getting involved!

Teaming Up for Regional Prosperity

We are thrilled today to announce a dynamic partnership for community development! Our Creative Class Strategies division has joined with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to create the Knight Creative Communities Initiative (KCCI).

KCCI combines our 30 years of economic research with the inspiration of our mentor, Jane Jacobs, who tells us to "Ask the people that live there." The result is a year long program designed for community members to understand and build their own sustainable regional prosperity.

We have been working on similar programs with vibrant groups in Tacoma, WA and El Paso, TX, and are eager to begin similar endeavors with the citizens of Tallahassee, FL, Charlotte, NC and Duluth-Superior, MN.

Check out these early press clippings:

from Duluth's News Tribune and Superior Daily Telegram
and Tallahassee.com

Do you live in one of these Knight communities? Be a part of KCCI. Fill-in an application here:

Tallahassee, FL
Duluth-Superior, MN
Charlotte, NC (coming soon!)

Are you interested in hosting a similar program in your community? Contact Rod at RodFrantz@CreativeClass.org.

Fascinating View of the Valley

Interesting piece by Chris Rhoads of the WSJ about one of the pioneers of Silicon Valley. The Twilight Years of Cap'n Crunch offers real insight into the early 'wild' years of Silicon Valley and describes the life and career of John Draper,

"In the decades since Mr. Draper gained fame for his hacking skills as a "phone phreak" -- he once claimed to have gotten then-President Nixon on the phone -- Silicon Valley has aged and matured. Pioneers that Mr. Draper worked with, such as Apple's Steve Jobs, have gone on to become wealthy members of the business establishment.

Then there is "Cap'n Crunch," part of an aging community of high-tech wunderkinds. Once tolerated, even embraced, for his eccentricities, Mr. Draper now lives on the margins of this affluent world, still striving to carve out a role in the business mainstream.

Although his appearance and hand-to-mouth existence belie it, Mr. Draper developed one of the first word-processing programs as well as the technology that made possible voice-activated telephone menus. He receives invitations to speak to foreign governments and international conferences. At a recent celebration of Apple Inc.'s 30th anniversary, Mr. Draper, sporting a straggly beard, stood to contribute a story, causing the room to break into applause.

Mr. Draper spent three stints in jail in the 1970s for tampering with the phone system. A court-appointed psychiatrist once found him to be "psychotic," although another found nothing wrong with him. Until a fall at a conference in Istanbul aggravated a back injury, Mr. Draper was a regular in the rave scene, where people gather in remote locations and dance through the night to electronic music. Mr. Draper once did $10,000 worth of Web-site design and other computer work for a Bay-area therapist in return for physical therapy on his back because he lacks health insurance."

Really a good read and the WSJ offers some great features online including a photo gallery and video blog of Mr. Draper called CrunchTV.

posted by David

Music, innovation and creativity

The intersection of music, creativity and innovation has been a central interest of mine for some time now. So I was delighted to come across Peter Tschmuck's work.  Click here to link to one of his papers, and here for his book.

Frankendate

Gotta love this "Frankendate" graphic which ran with today's New York Times, story about why so many Americans are single:.  Referencing the research of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, the story notes:  "with no biological or sociological clock ticking," the article  states,  “boys can remain boys indefinitely.” The rest of the article digs deeper  into the intersection of  marriage, gender, and social class.

"[W]hen it comes to marriage, the two Americas aren’t divided by gender. ... The emerging gulf is instead one of class — what demographers, sociologists and those who study the often depressing statistics about the wedded state call a “marriage gap” between the well-off and the less so. Statistics show that college educated women are more likely to marry than non-college educated women — although they marry, on average, two years later. ... In the past, less educated women often “married up.” ... Now, marriage has become more one of equals; when more highly educated men marry, it tends to be more highly educated women. ... Women with more education also are becoming less likely to divorce, or inclined to divorce, than those with less education. They are even less likely to be widowed all in all, less likely to end up alone.

The class gap happens in large part because, as Christopher Jencks, a professor of social policy at Harvard, said, “like marries like.”  “If you wanted to predict the characteristics of who I would marry,” he said, “knowing my education, the strongest correlation you could observe is that someone who is educated is more likely to marry someone who is educated, and someone who is not educated is more likely to marry someone who is not educated.”

The whole story is here.

Virgin Atlantic wants you

Virgin Atlantic unveiled a new multi-media console to give fliers access to pay-per-view movies, live satellite TV,  and more music and audio offerings, as well as enabling them to order meals, send text messages, power-up their computers, and access wireless networks.  According to this Adweek article, Virgin did so to increase its appeal to  the "creative class as a target audience."

Leadership

Walter Jones applies the creativity theory to leadership.   

"The way to foster creativity ... is to encourage everyone to have a voice, to feel comfortable offering their own quirky opinions, even the weirdoes, the nerds and those in the minority. They'll be encouraged as long as what he calls the "squelchers" are kept in check. These are the naysayers, the guardians of the status quo. No one likes to be put down or have his or her ideas minimized. The natural reaction is to stop offering suggestions when they're repeatedly belittled or ignored." 

Read the whole thing here.

Your thoughts?

Demography 101

Just came across this chart on Kenneth Gronbach's very interesting blog on demography and generational marketing.

Hello Columbus

Just back from Columbus, Indiana where I addressed the Chamber of Commerce/ Young Professionals annual meeting. Columbus, just outside of Indianapolis, is home to Cummins and is one of the world's great centers of modernist architecture (that's Eliel Saarinen 1942 First Christian Church pictured). I  got to spend some time with Mayor Fred Armstrong, Tracy Souza of the Cummins Foundation, and the energetic new president of the Chamber, Jack Hess. I was so impressed with the strategy he outlined during his presentation, based on a combination of Jim Collins, Michael Porter and my own thinking, that I asked Hess for his slides.

Click here for an abridged version.

The great unbundling

The Economist summarizes what looks to be an improved economic approach to globalization, outsourcing and off-shoring (hat tip: New Economist).

Globalisation is a big word but an old idea, most economists will say, with a jaded air. The phenomenon has kept the profession's number-crunchers busy, counting the spoils and how they are divided. But it has left the blackboard theorists with relatively little to do. They are confident their traditional models of trade can handle it, even in its latest manifestations. For example, Greg Mankiw, of Harvard University, has concluded that “services offshoring fits comfortably within the intellectual framework of comparative advantage built on the insights of Adam Smith and David Ricardo.”

Suburban despair and the religious right

Very interesting piece by Chris Hedges, Pulitzer prize winning journalist and former Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times:

"The engine that drives the radical Christian Right in the United States, the most dangerous mass movement in American history, is not religiosity, but despair. It is a movement built on the growing personal and economic despair of tens of millions of Americans, who watched helplessly as their communities were plunged into poverty by the flight of manufacturing jobs, their families and neighborhoods torn apart by neglect and indifference, and who eventually lost hope that America was a place where they had a future. This despair crosses economic boundaries, of course, enveloping many in the middle class who live trapped in huge, soulless exurbs where, lacking any form of community rituals or centers, they also feel deeply isolated, vulnerable and lonely. Those in despair are the most easily manipulated by demagogues, who promise a fantastic utopia, whether it is a worker's paradise, fraternite-egalite-liberte, or the second coming of Jesus Christ. Those in despair search desperately for a solution, the warm embrace of a community to replace the one they lost, a sense of purpose and meaning in life, the assurance they are protected, loved and worthwhile."

Read the whole thing here.

Michael Barone gets it half-right

U.S. News and World Report pundit Michael Barone has a blog entry on migration between cities and counties where he writes:  "... so much for Richard Florida's theory that "creative cities" are growth magnets. ...net internal migration is out of rather than into such creative cities as Manhattan, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver."   Read the whole thing here.

He uses  Census data on net internal migration, the change in population excluding natural increase or international migration, to identify winning and losing places.  His five biggest winners: Riverside, California (gaining 292,038 residents), Maricopa/Phoenix, Arizona (259,869), Clark/Las Vegas, Nevada (219,112), San Bernardino, California (120,496), and Collins/Plano, Texas (110,837).  He adds:  "Note that most of these counties are exurban in character, at the edge of large metropolitan areas. ...The internal migration flow out from the central-city counties to exurban counties is immense. Politically, 21 of these 24 counties voted for George W. Bush in 2004. "

His biggest five losers: Los Angeles (loss of 562,351 residents), Cook County/Chicago, Illinois (500,099), Kings County/Brookyn, New York (291,748), Queens County, New York (283,573), and Dallas, Texas (207,389).  San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Denver, Washington DC, Fairfax County, VA, and many other places make this list.  "You won't be surprised to learn," he writes, "that most are big central-city counties; the five counties that make up New York City had a net internal outmigration of 808,562."  Politically, he adds, "31 of these 33 counties (and county equivalents) voted for John Kerry in 2004...."

Not so fast.  What Barone fails to consider is that these overall trends mask a deeper demographic shift...

Social life of the suit

Mark Cuban  can't understand why people wear suits.

"Exactly what purpose does a suit serve ? Why in the world are so many people required to wear a suit to work ? Do the clothes make the man or woman in the western world today ? Does wearing a tie make us work harder or smarter ? Is this a conspiracy by the clothing, fabric or dry cleaning industry to take our money?  Or are we all just lemmings following a standard we all know makes zero sense, but we follow  because we are afraid not to ? "

Read the whole thing here.

Putting It In Words

'Place Branding' or slogans are used by a lot of communities to attract people.

TaglineGuru named these the top 10 city slogans in the US:

    What Happens Here, Stays Here. - Las Vegas, NV
    So Very Virginia. - Charlottesville, VA
    Always Turned On. - Atlantic City, NJ
    Cleveland Rocks! - Cleveland, OH
    The Sweetest Place on Earth. - Hershey, PA
    Rare. Well Done. - Omaha, NE
    The City Different. - Santa Fe, NM
    Where Yee-Ha Meets Olé. - Eagle Pass, TX
    City with Sol. - San Diego, CA
    Where the Odds Are With You. - Peculiar, MO
Click here for the full list and methodology.

Image is definitely important - check out Place Branding's Anholt-GMI City Brands Index, which analyzes how people see different cities.

The question is, can cities effectively craft their image with words?  And if they can, will it lead to more people moving and/or visiting the city?

Here are a few articles/studies for your consideration:

A recent op-ed by Corey Johnson, a doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon, on Eugene’s new slogan.

A study of European City Branding: An Effective Assertion Of Identity Or a Transitory Marketing Trick?

And this study on community slogans in Wisconsin by Professor David Muench. He points out that slogans may in fact be more important for current residents, giving them a connect to local history and each other.

And one more, on branding countries.

What do you think? Has a community’s slogan ever affected your decision to move or visit? Is your community’s slogan helping people connect to each other and/or the soul of their city? What makes a slogan work?

Posted by Amanda. Have thoughts, questions or examples on/of community development strategies? Post them here or write  Amanda@CreativeClass.org. 

Why he left

Blogger John Manoogian pens a very interesting post here. I for one understand what it's like to be inside what he calls his "amniotic bubble."

A friend asked me why i left {my old job, town} and moved to SF. This is what i wrote in response. I took a wild new job. and i felt like it was time.   felt that by living in detroit, i had to work harder than i would have to work in other cities to connect w/people who understood the sorts of projects i love to build, and that it was really hard to find audiences and collaborators for, well, most things i cared about. i love detroit, but i could see that meeting collaborators and mentors would be easier in a more creative city [1]. i also started felt that the attitude i had adopted was defensively masochistic, i.e. “yeah it’s way harder to make yourself understood here, but because it’s tough makes it worth struggling for”. and that attitude was kinda childish. yes, hard things are worth doing, but just BECAUSE something is hard, doesn’t make it worth doing. you might just be doing it in the wrong way, or in the wrong place.

When i quit my job of seven years at Organic, i had nothing definite lined up — i just had some approximate opportunities and open promises from friends for interviews and freelance work and so on. but before i left, i realized something: Organic was an amniotic bubble that protected me from Detroit. what i mean by that is: work provided me with a complete, self-sustaining ecosystem that assuaged my needs and wants, while muffling the roaring vacuum of the Detroit environment. it provided constant travel to SF, NY, Toronto, and Europe. it provided access to a network of information, and people in those cities. by remaining inside that protective bubble, i could continue to live a semi-normal creative life inside detroit, because new culture and people and technology were being drip-fed into my amniotic bubble by my employer.But an artificial equilibrium doesn’t hold, and one day i realized i was a Matrix-baby spoon fed by the system, and i had to escape. so i left. and upon cutting that life-line, i needed to go somewhere where the oxygen was rich and plentiful, if i wanted to breathe. so i picked SF. So that’s my story. i hadn’t planned on writing quite so much, but it just sort of expressed itself.

Anyone else feel like that - your thoughts, comments?

Europe and the 3Ts

Here is an abridged version of a press release today from the European Parliament.

Chancellor Angela Merkel gave her first speech to the European Parliament as President-in-Office of the European Council. Chancellor Merkel highlighted the forthcoming Berlin Declaration to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the European Union and the need for tolerance.

Mrs Merkel believed Europe already had a soul, which was linked to its "tremendous diversity"...    But for diversity to exist, another quality was needed: freedom.  And real freedom required respect for the freedom of others or, to use the famous quotation attributed to Voltaire, "I may disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it "... Ultimately, she believed, "Europe's soul is tolerance. Europe is the continent of tolerance". This lesson had taken a long time to learn and the worst period of "hatred, devastation and destruction" lay not so far in the past but this was all the more reason for Europe to promote the virtue of tolerance at home and abroad.

She said an American academic, Richard Florida, had identified three ingredients as crucial to successful development in various parts of the world.  These were "technology, talent and -tolerance!" "What good news for Europe!", said Mrs Merkel. Indeed, she added "Europe thrives on innovation, on scientific, technical, economic and social progress" and "Europe thrives on curiosity".  Ultimately, "Europe without its outstanding power of innovation would not be the Europe that it is today".

Read the rest here.

The financial world is very spiky

Three cities dominate the global market for initial public offerings, accounting for nearly $150 billion in IPOs - London ($51 billion), New York ($46 billion) and Hong Kong' ($41 billion) -  more than two-thirds of the global market, as this New York Times graphic shows. While the Times' graphic credits  Hong Kong with the highest dollar volume of any single exchange, it does not take into account the fact that NY and London each have two exchanges which I aggregate in my calculation by city-region.

51 percent

That's the percentage of women who are living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950, according to the New York Times.

Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

"This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people’s lives,” said Prof. Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group. “Most of these women will marry, or have married. But on average, Americans now spend half their adult lives outside marriage.”...

William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington, described the shift as “a clear tipping point, reflecting the culmination of post-1960 trends associated with greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women." For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of marriage,” Dr. Frey said. “Younger women understand this better, and are preparing to live longer parts of their lives alone or with nonmarried partners. For many older boomer and senior women, the institution of marriage did not